, and so to energetic movement upon perilous paths as a political writer, whose whole heart was with what he took to be the people's cause.
When Swift had been writing to Addison that he thought Steele 'the vilest of mankind,' in writing of this to Swift, Steele complained that the
Examiner
, — in which Swift had a busy hand, — said Addison had 'bridled him in point of politics,' adding,
'This was ill hinted both in relation to him and me. I know no party; but the truth of the question is what I will support as well as I can, when any man I honour is attacked.'
John Forster, whose keen insight into the essentials of literature led him to write an essay upon each of the two great founders of the latest period of English literature, Defoe and Steele, has pointed out in his masterly essay upon Steele that Swift denies having spoken of Steele as bridled by his friend, and does so in a way that frankly admits Steele's right to be jealous of the imputation. Mr. Forster justly adds that throughout Swift's intimate speech to Stella,
'whether his humours be sarcastic or polite, the friendship of Steele and Addison is for ever suggesting some annoyance to himself, some mortification, some regret, but never once the doubt that it was not intimate and sincere, or that into it entered anything inconsistent with a perfect equality.'
Six months after Addison's death Steele wrote (in No. 12 of the
Theatre
, and I am again quoting facts cited by John Forster),